The Jewel Merchants | Page 3

pots or the fair quires whereon you indite your verses, you cannot rationally he said to "owe" anything.... No, the Duke is but a spirited lad in quest of amusement: and Guido and Graciosa are the playthings with which, on this fine sunlit morning, he attempts to divert himself.
This much being granted--and confessed,--we let the play begin.
_Dumbarton Grange,_ _June, 1921_
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["Alessandro de Medici is generally styled by the Italian authors the first duke of Florence; but in this they are not strictly accurate. His title of duke was derived from Città, or Cività di Penna, and had been assumed by him several years before he obtained the direction of the Florentine state. It must also be observed, that, after the evasion of Eglamore, Duke Alessandro did not, as Robertson observes, 'enjoy the same absolute dominion as his family have retained to the present times,' (Hist. Charles V. book v.) he being only declared chief or prince of the republic, and his authority being in some measure counteracted or restrained by two councils chosen from the citizens, for life, one of which consisted of forty-eight, and the other of two hundred members. (Varchi, Storia Fior. p. 497: Nerli, Com. lib. xi. pp. 257, 264.)"]
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THE JEWEL MERCHANTS
_"Diamente nè smeraldo nè zaffino."_
Originally produced by the Little Theatre League of Richmond, Virginia, at the Binford High School Auditorium, 22 February, 1921.
Original Cast GRACIOSA...........................Elinor Fry Daughter of Balthazar Valori
GUIDO........................Roderick Maybee A jewel merchant
ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.........Francis F. Bierne Duke of Florence
Produced under the direction of Louise Burleigh.
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THE JEWEL MERCHANTS _The play begins with the sound of a woman's voice singing a song (adapted from Rossetti's version) which is delivered to the accompaniment of a lute._
SONG:
Let me have dames and damsels richly clad To feed and tend my mirth, Singing by day and night to make me glad.
Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth Filled with the strife of birds, With water-springs and beasts that house i' the earth.
Let me seem Solomon for lore of words, Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.
Knights as my serfs be given; And as I will, let music go and come, Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.
_As the singing ends, the curtain rises upon a corner of Balthazar Valori's garden near the northern border of Tuscany. The garden is walled. There is a shrine in the wall: the tortured figure upon the crucifix is conspicuous. To the right stands a rather high-backed stone bench: by mounting from the seat to the top of the bench it is possible to scale the wall. To the left a crimson pennant on a pole shows against the sky. The period is 1533, and a few miles southward the Florentines, after three years of formally recognizing Jesus Christ as the sole lord and king of Florence, have lately altered matters as profoundly as was possible by electing Alessandro de Medici to be their Duke._
_GRACIOSA is seated upon the bench, with a lute. The girl is, to our modern taste, very quaintly dressed in gold-colored satin, with a short tight bodice, cut square and low at the neck, and with long full skirts. When she stands erect, her preposterous "flowing" sleeves, lined with sky blue, reach to the ground. Her blonde hair, of which she has a great deal, is braided, in the intricate early sixteenth fashion, under a jeweled cap and a veil the exact color of this hair._
_There is a call. Smiling, GRACIOSA answers this call by striking her lute. She pats straight her hair and gown, and puts aside the instrument. GUIDO appears at the top of the wall. All you can see of the handsome young fellow, in this posture, is that he wears a green skull-cap and a dark blue smock, the slashed sleeves of which are lined with green._
GUIDO Ah, madonna....
GRACIOSA Welcome, Ser Guido. Your journey has been brief.
GUIDO It has not seemed brief to me.
GRACIOSA Why, it was only three days ago you told me it would be a fortnight before you came this way again.
GUIDO Yes, but I did not then know that each day spent apart from you, Madonna Graciosa, would be a century in passing.
GRACIOSA Dear me, but your search must have been desperate!
GUIDO (_Who speaks, as almost always hereinafter, with sober enjoyment of the fact that he is stating the exact truth unintelligibly._) Yes, my search is desperate.
GRACIOSA Did you find gems worthy of your search?
GUIDO Very certainly, since at my journey's end I find Madonna Graciosa, the chief jewel of Tuscany.
GRACIOSA Such compliments, Guido, make your speech less like a merchant's than a courtier's.
GUIDO Ah, well, to balance that, you will presently find courtiers in Florence who will barter for you like merchants. May I descend?
GRACIOSA Yes, if you have